Freaky Florida Mystery Adventures Box Set

by Margaret Lashley

  I closed my eyes and shook my head. “No.” And I didn’t want to know.

  “Okay, so you brushed your teeth,” Grayson continued. “Dementia could also cause changes in taste perception. You’re not holding anything back on me, are you?”

  I shot him a sour look. “If I had dementia, how would I know?”

  Grayson laughed. “I guess that leaves illicit drugs or vitamin supplements.”

  My back stiffened. “Vitamins?”

  Grayson glanced my way. “Yes. Some supplements contain heavy metals like copper, zinc, chromium, and whatnot.”

  “Oh.” I reached into my purse and pulled out a bottle. “Like these?”

  “Flintstone vitamins with extra iron,” Grayson said, grabbing the bottle from my hand and reading the label out loud. “Well, what do you know? Yabba, dabba do.”

  Chapter Nine

  “COULD VITAMINS REALLY be the cause of whatever happened to me?” I asked as Grayson pulled the RV into a low-rent motel off US 19 called the Dilly Dally Motor Court.

  “The metallic taste in your mouth, yes,” he said, pulling up to the motel office. He parked and cut the ignition. “Loss of eyesight, I don’t think so.”

  He unfastened his seatbelt and studied me with his piercing green eyes. “But there is one thing that could cause both.”

  “What?” I asked, not entirely sure I wanted to know.

  “Pregnancy. Are you sure there’s no chance you’ve got a hot-cross bun in the oven?”

  I scowled. “Not unless I’m the Immaculate Conception, 2.0.”

  Grayson laughed. He rattled the jar of vitamins at me. “When’s the last time you had one of these babies?”

  “Right after lunch.”

  “Which one did you take? Barney, Fred, Wilma or Pebbles?”

  “I don’t remember.” I chewed my lip, then realized Grayson was having a laugh on me. “You can be a real turd, you know that?”

  Grayson smirked. “Just trying to make you smile. After all, laughter is the best medicine, they say.”

  I sneered. “Not when it’s delivered by a quack.”

  Grayson snorted, then mocked offence. “The ingratitude!” he huffed, then flung open the RV door.

  The thought of being left alone panicked me. What if I went blind again? “Where are you going?” I asked.

  “To get a room. I think it’s time to put that faulty noggin of yours through its paces.”

  I cringed. “Not more Mystery Science Theater 3000!”

  “No. Something way better.”

  Grayson waggled his eyebrows like Groucho Marx, and suddenly I knew what “something way better” meant.

  “Wait!” I said.

  But it was too late. Grayson hopped out and slammed the RV door behind him.

  As he disappeared into the motel office, I noticed he’d left the keys dangling in the ignition. I contemplated the odds of me going blind again if I stole the rundown Winnebago and made a mad dash for Poughkeepsie.

  Probably considerably less than the odds of me being pregnant by immaculate conception. But then again, you never know....

  Before I could make up my mind, Grayson reemerged from the motel office with a key chained to a wooden paddle. The look in his eye made me instantly curse my own indecisiveness.

  In less than ten minutes, I would find myself lying in a lumpy bed in a sleazy hotel room with electrodes pasted to my head—the hapless Guinea pig of a slightly mad physicist with a pimped-out EEG machine.

  Ain’t life grand?

  Chapter Ten

  THE GREEN-SKINNED DEMON in Grayson’s computer program snapped its bloody fangs at me again, then the laptop screen blinked out with a static buzz.

  As the horrific image faded, it was replaced by the silly, smiling face of the cartoon vampire, Count Chocula. Above the breakfast-cereal icon’s head, a conversation bubble read, “Have a chocolaty scrumptious day!”

  I let out a sigh. Another of Grayson’s bizarre desensitization training sessions had come to an end.

  “So, we’re done?” I asked, suddenly craving cereal. I sat up in bed and felt the tug of the dozen electrodes pasted to my head like a Medusa starter kit.

  Grayson looked up from the EEG machine’s display monitor. “Yes. You did well, considering.”

  “Considering what?”

  “Your incident today. I don’t see any brain anomalies on the printout. At least, no new ones.”

  I scowled. “Is that some kind of crack?”

  He stared at me quizzically, like an emotionless Spock. “Is what some kind of crack?”

  “The brain anomaly thing.”

  “You do have the vestiges of a twin lodged near your pineal gland, remember?”

  I flinched. I remembered, all right. “Do you think that’s what caused me to go blind?”

  Grayson shrugged. “It’s a possibility. But, I’m curious. Why now? And why only temporarily? The mass on your brain might be partially responsible, but I find your ingestion of vitamins intriguing.”

  I sneered. “That’s what you find intriguing about me?”

  Grayson continued his analytical monologue, seemingly oblivious to my comment. “Some element—or elements—of the supplement must’ve acted as a catalyst, precipitating interaction between otherwise inert substances.”

  My upper lip hooked toward the ceiling. “What?”

  Grayson glanced over at me and held up the jar of vitamins.

  “Pebbles go bam-bam on your brainstem.”

  “Oh.” I sat up and tugged off an electrode pasted to my right temple. “Grayson?”

  “What?”

  “Thanks for being so cool during my ... uh, incident. While I was driving, I mean. I know you didn’t want me to. I shouldn’t have .... Anyway, you saved us. I could’ve gotten us both killed.”

  “All in the line of duty,” he said softly, then grinned at me like the Cheshire Cat who ate the LSD canary. “Besides, the risk was worth it.”

  “What do you mean?” I asked sourly.

  He wagged his eyebrows. “Now I never have to let you drive again.”

  I scowled. Grayson chuckled and went back to studying my test results. I pulled off a few more electrodes, then I blew out a breath.

  “Nosferatu. Dracula. Count Chocula. What’s up with the vampire theme?”

  “One ghoul at a time,” Grayson replied, his attention still on the EEG monitor.

  I rolled my eyes. “Grayson, if I ever got a straight answer from you, I think I’d faint.”

  He glanced over at me. “Good thing you’re in bed, then.”

  “Ugh!” I pulled off another electrode. “What’ve you got planned for your next program? Mummies?”

  Grayson winked and tutted at me. “Come now, Drex. Mummies are for sissies. Everybody knows that.”

  I got up and headed to the bathroom for a hot shower and to scrub my stubbly head clean of electrode paste. I turned back toward Grayson. “So, what now?”

  “I think you should call it a day.” He grabbed the RV’s keys from the cheap nightstand beside his threadbare twin bed. “I’ll go pick up some dinner. What are you in the mood for, battery breath? Oh! I know. How about a fried Energizer bunny—and an ‘alkali-ic’ drink to go with it?”

  I stared at him blankly. “I bet you’ve been waiting your entire life to say that to somebody, haven’t you?”

  Chapter Eleven

  QUICK TRAVEL TIP: IF you ever go in search of the nostalgic highlights of old Central Florida, sunrise over the parking lot at the Dilly-Dally Motor Court in New Port Richey is one that should by all means be avoided. Unless, of course, the alternative is to be trapped in one of their grungy rooms with a travel companion who sings in the shower like Barry Gibb with his nuts in a vice ....

  I hauled my butt off the cold, concrete curb and stared at the artless still-life before me.

  Cigarette butts on asphalt at dawn. A post-apocalyptic abstract.

  I checked my cellphone. I figured I still had around five o
r six minutes before Grayson finished his earsplitting aria. I shoved my phone back into my pocket and shuffled across the motor court parking lot to the dreary lobby. Inside, I downed a cup of crappy coffee and perused the giant rack of gleaming tourist-trap flyers.

  One in particular caught my eye.

  It had a Sasquatch on it.

  I picked up the flyer and began pondering three of the great mysteries of life.

  Who knew the headquarters for skunk ape research was in Ochopee, Florida? Who knew there was a town on Earth called Ochopee? Who knew what Ochopee stood for? Eight Spanish urinations?

  I let a few minutes tick by as I reflected on these burning questions. I was about to leave when another one of Grandma Selma’s sayings popped into my mind.

  “An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of government cheese.”

  I got up and hid the Skunk Ape Research brochures behind the mini-fridge, just in case Grayson wandered in later. Then I poured a couple of fresh cups of stale coffee, and joggled my way across the parking lot and back to the motel room.

  I set the coffees on the ground beside the door and reached for the wooden paddle I’d stuck in the back waistband of my pants. The room key was fastened to the paddle like a ball and chain on an old-time convict.

  I shook my head. Who would want to steal a key so they could return to this place was beyond my current mental capacity.

  I opened the door and tentatively poked my head inside our cigarette-scented room. Mercifully, Pavarotti had finished his morning sonata. I bent down to pick up the coffees and blanched.

  A lizard was using one of the coffees as a heated swimming pool.

  Correction. A lizard was using Grayson’s coffee as a heated swimming pool.

  I plucked the little reptile out of his brown bubble bath and set him on the sidewalk to dry off. Then I slipped inside and parked my keister in the vinyl chair that had the smallest split in its seat.

  I fired up Grayson’s laptop and was slurping stale coffee and perusing local nursing-home websites when he emerged from the bathroom wearing his signature black jeans and blue hospital booties.

  Yep. Livin’ the glam life, all right.

  “What was the name of that nursing home Garth mentioned?” I asked. “Bunker Hill?”

  “Banner Hill.” Grayson rubbed his chin. “I wonder if any more vets went missing last night.”

  I glanced at Grayson’s killer abs and smooth, muscular chest and felt something inside me stir. Then I remembered the guy had swabbed my tongue for evil and interviewed hillbillies about elves. My swizzle-stick went limp.

  “I didn’t see anything about it on CNN,” I quipped.

  Grayson nodded. “Good one, considering you haven’t had any coffee this morning.”

  I lifted my paper cup. “What do you call this?”

  “That’s not coffee, Drex. That’s brown water.”

  I stared at the weak brew and crinkled my nose. “That’s an insult to brown water.”

  “Hopefully the coffee’s better at Banner Hill.”

  I looked up at him. “We’re going there?”

  “Yes.”

  “Right now?”

  “Of course not. I need to put on a shirt and shoes first.”

  “Fine,” I said, picking up the other coffee cup. “But first, you’ve gotta try this. It’s really not that bad.”

  Chapter Twelve

  “THAT LOOKS LIKE THE place,” I said.

  Grayson whistled long and low. “You sure?”

  “Yeah. I recognize it from the website.”

  Grayson pulled the RV to a stop in front of a single-story, red-brick building. White, concrete-block additions had been cobbled onto both sides of the main structure. A string of small outbuildings sprouted like toadstools over a half-acre campus of asphalt parking lots and intermittent strips of patchy, threadbare lawn.

  A huge oak tree shaded Banner Hill’s front yard. Under it, a few droopy-seated park benches languished in the shade. Overall, the place reminded me of a third-world elementary school that had fallen from the sky onto a post-war parking lot.

  A couple of old guys in wheelchairs were lined up along the brick wall outside the front door, smoking and squinting like geriatric peeping-Toms, the mid-morning sun filtering through the oak tree’s thick branches.

  “I don’t think Banner Hill is gonna make the cover of Architectural Digest anytime soon,” I quipped.

  When Grayson didn’t reply, I turned to face him. He hadn’t cut the ignition. Instead, he was staring at the steering wheel, chewing his bottom lip.

  “What’s up?” I asked.

  He shook his head and glanced over at the building. “Something doesn’t feel right.”

  “Why? Were you expecting a welcome committee?”

  “Not exactly.” Grayson studied me for a moment with his unreadable green eyes. “Where are the reporters, Drex? Three vets missing, and not a single media van, cop car, nosy neighbor, nothing.”

  I cringed. Grayson had yet again had to point out the obvious to me.

  “Maybe nobody reported them missing,” I said, mostly in an attempt to save face.

  “Hmm. I suppose that’s possible.” His eyes shifted back to the building. “But why?”

  “Where did Garth get his intel about guys going missing?” I asked.

  “From the guy who cuts his hair.”

  I nearly choked. “We’re here based on the ramblings of a barber who thinks mullets are still a valid fashion statement?”

  Grayson pursed his lips. “Not exactly. The barber’s grandfather is living here. His name is Melvin Haplets.”

  “Oh.”

  “According to Melvin, the men here are slowly fading away.”

  I glanced at three old men lined up in wheelchairs by the front door. “Uh ... isn’t that the whole point of this place?”

  “Disappearing without a trace isn’t.” Grayson’s gaze fell back on me.

  “No. You’re right,” I said, ditching my snarky attitude. “Do you have any working theories?”

  “One.” Grayson held out two fingers, forming a V.

  “Victory?” I asked.

  “No.”

  “Veterans?”

  “No.”

  “Vanishing?”

  “No.”

  “Okay, Grayson, I give up. What, then?”

  “Vampires.”

  I nearly choked. “Vampires? Get real!”

  “Don’t be so quick to discount vampirism,” Grayson said. “Florida has a rich history of believers.”

  “Yeah? Name one.”

  Grayson smiled. “Okay, if you insist.”

  Oh, crap. Here we go again. Another of Grayson’s drive-by “factings.”

  “Back in 2000, a guy from Tampa calling himself ‘The Impaler’ ran for the senate. He also made a bid for president of the United States in 2004 and 2008, telling reporters he wanted to become the first vampire president.”

  I cringed. “You’re making that up.”

  “Nope. I listened to the TV interview myself. I’ve got to say, The Impaler had some well-thought-out opinions on capital punishment and veterans issues. Must’ve brushed up on things when he served on the Executive Committee of the Hillsborough County Republican Party. You know, before he went over to ‘the V-side.’”

  “One lone case,” I said.

  “Hardly,” Grayson laughed. “Nowadays, people say they see vampires everywhere. Not long ago, a guy in Cape Coral was caught on video climbing atop a police cruiser and gyrating to the sweet tunes of Rich Girl.”

  I frowned. “Are you saying all Hall & Oates are vampires?”

  “Hmm. I never thought about that.”

  “Ugh! So, what’s your point, Grayson?”

  “Well, after the guy finished his dance number atop the cruiser, he tore off the windshield wipers for good measure. Then he jumped down, grabbed an American flag, and waved it around until he was taken into custody. According to the Lee County police affidavit, the man�
�s solo act was inspired by ‘a woman with fangs.’ The man claimed she’d threatened him and scared him out of his home. He was absolutely convinced a human sacrifice involving vampires was about to occur.”

  “That didn’t really happen, did it?”

  “Sure did. The Lee County Sheriff’s Office released the video. I saw it myself.”

  “Geez. Did they find out why he got on top of the police car?”

  “Yes. He said he was ‘looking for the Sheriff of Nottingham to help him stop the slaughter of small children.’”

  I cringed. “There couldn’t be any truth to that, could there?”

  Grayson shrugged. “Who knows? They never caught the vampire woman who was allegedly harassing him.”

  “Or the meth lab that sold him the drugs.” I shook my head. “Okay. Two totally isolated instances. That doesn’t mean Florida’s overrun with vampires.”

  “Then how do you explain the old guy in Daytona Beach who burned down his own house after screaming vampires were going to get him?”

  “What?”

  Grayson nodded. “It happened. And the guy was probably the same age as the old men sitting over there.”

  Grayson pointed back to the old guys smoking on the front porch of the nursing home.

  “Really?” I asked.

  “Absolutely.”

  “What happened?”

  “The old guy went berserk. He broke out a few windows with his cane, then threw some ceiling insulation on the stove to really get the party started. Once the place was going up in flames, he grabbed a knife and started shouting, ‘The vampires are going to defend themselves.’”

  I shook my head. “That really happened?”

  “Yes. And from what I hear, the house was a total loss. But on the bright side, nobody got hurt. And, he avoided being Baker-Acted because they couldn’t prove he was incompetent.”

  “So ... the old man was sane?”

  “Apparently so. So, do you need any more proof vampires are alive and well? I’ve got plenty more examples.”

  “No. That’s enough.” I frowned and shook my head. “Geez. What’s the world coming to?”